were pines, and it was a lonely musing place, and so on one of
the stillest, clearest days of 'St. Luke's little summer,' the last
afternoon of her visit at the Holt, there stood Honora, leaning against a
tree stem, deep, very deep in a vision of the primeval woodlands of the
West, their red inhabitants, and the white man who should carry the true,
glad tidings westward, westward, ever from east to west. Did she know
how completely her whole spirit and soul were surrendered to the worship
of that devotion? Worship? Yes, the word is advisedly used; Honora had
once given her spirit in homage to Schiller's self-sacrificing Max; the
same heart-whole veneration was now rendered to the young missionary,
multiplied tenfold by the hero being in a tangible, visible shape, and
not by any means inclined to thwart or disdain the allegiance of the
golden-haired girl. Nay, as family connections frequently meeting, they
had acted upon each other's minds more than either knew, even when the
hour of parting had come, and words had been spoken which gave Honora
something more to cherish in the image of Owen Sandbrook than even the
hero and saint. There then she stood and dreamt, pensive and saddened
indeed, but with a melancholy trenching very nearly on happiness in the
intensity of its admiration, and the vague ennobling future of devoted
usefulness in which her heart already claimed to share, as her person
might in some far away period on which she could not dwell.

[Picture: I find I can't spare you, Honora]

A sound approached, a firm footstep, falling with strong elasticity and
such regular cadences, that it seemed to chime in with the pine-tree
music, and did not startle her till it came so near that there was
distinctive character to be discerned in the tread, and then with a
strange, new shyness, she would have slipped away, but she had been seen,
and Humfrey, with his timber race in his hand, appeared on the path,
exclaiming, 'Ah, Honor, is it you come out to meet me, like old times?
You have been so much taken up with your friend Master Owen that I have
scarcely seen you of late.'

Honor did not move away, but she blushed deeply as she said, 'I am afraid
I did not come to meet you, Humfrey.'

'No? What, you came for the sake of a brown study? I wish I had known
you were not busy, for I have been round all the woods marking timber.'

'Ah!' said she, rousing herself with some effort, 'I wonder how many
t